More Flexibility for Specialty Crop

Life may have just become a little easier for specialty crops who have crop insurance, thanks to a new rule just out from the Agriculture Department.

"The new rules will ease the burden of reporting considerably," said Marsha Bunger, head of RMA.  She said he says, up to now, specialty crop producers who have crop insurance would have to get a 3rd party adjuster, or vendor, to come verify production and marketing information for every crop that the farmer produces.  That can be dozens of crops, could be a time consuming process, which producers of row crops, like corn and soybeans, don't have to do; they self-certify.  And now, with this new rule, so can most specialty crop producers producers.

"They will be providing their own production information.  It won't be necessary then to have 3rd party verification, so they'll be able to use their own production records, which I think will be a huge benefit to direct marketers and vertically integrated producers."

But there will be random spot checks of farmers to make sure that production information's accurate.

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